Friday, June 12, 2009

I'm a huge fan of Sketchup (http://sketchup.google.com/). It's an easy to use 3D modeling tool. I think it's a tool that will make all of us better woodworkers. But if your here you probably know that already.

I make lots of models that have drawers and my prefered method of making them is with dovetails. I searched for a plugin that would make dovetails for me but couldn't find one. So I finally wrote one. If you'd like a copy of it you can download it now.

I think it's pretty easy to use, but I wrote it, so I would think that. The idea behind the plugin is to create a dovetail end that can be dragged and dropped on a "board".

3. when your ready to create a dovetail click on the menu "Plugins>Draw Dovetail", and the following window will pop up:

The fields correspond to :

Overall Length - The total length the dovetail segment will be.

End Pin Length - The length the end pin segments will be.

Number of Tails - The total number of tails to be created.

Tail Depth - How deep the tail will be.

Pin Width - How wide the pins will be at their base (this would normally be the width of your dovetail chisel)

Angle - The angle the dovetails will be (Can be entered in degrees or ratio).

4. Press "Okay" and the dovetail segment will be drawn at theorigin.

5. Highlight the dovetail segment and drag and drop it onto your "board". By using the copy method you can drop this onto as many "boards" as you would like. Or you can create a unique dovetail segment for each end.

6. Use the push/pull tool to remove the pins/tails.

That's all there is to it.

If you have any comments, bug notices, or suggestions please feel free to let me know by sending an email to tjtalma(at)gmail(dot)com.If you like this plugin and would like to see it maintained and enhanced please consider making a donation.